It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist - something done every day in Washington

That's a very interesting turn from the first sentence to the second, from a hat-trick of straw men what looks to me like a lie.

Here's a little bit from the Post article allegedly being quoted:

"The story was published online the same day that a top-secret report was made available to a small circle within the intelligence community  including Kim, who at the time was a State Department arms expert with security clearance."

7
posted on 05/20/2013 7:05:31 AM PDT
by jiggyboy
(Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)

Obama is going to use James Rosen issue to try to draw all attention away from Benghazi & the IRS. If what the Guardian is saying is true, this is a VERY bad precedent, charging Rosen with something which is not a crime, in order to silence him and others... I m interested to see how the GOP deals with this case in particular.

True. I hope they (Fox) don’t quite him up, like the reporter who interviewed 0 with tough questions, then got audited. That guys station owner, Belo, has shut him up, after he went public about the audit.

You can be guaranteed that Obama and Holder will hang someone - anyone - in the AP snooping case. It’s essential to their story line, so they can say “See, we told you so.” Someone’s going down, same as Nakoula.

RE :”Now we know that the DOJ is doing exactly that: applying this theory to criminalize the acts of journalists who report on what the US government does in secret, even though there is no law that makes such reporting illegal and the First Amendment protects such conduct. Essentially accusing James Rosen of being an unindicted co-conspriator in these alleged crimes is a major escalation of the Obama DOJ’s already dangerous attacks on press freedom. It is virtually impossible at this point to overstate the threat posed by the Obama DOJ to press freedoms. Back in 2006, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales triggered a major controversy when he said that the New York Times could be prosecuted for having revealed the Top Secret information that the NSA was eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without warrants. That was at the same time that right-wing demagogues such Bill Bennett were calling for the prosecution of the NYT reporters who reported on the NSA program, as well as the Washington Post's Dana Priest for having exposed the CIA black site network. But despite those public threats, the Bush DOJ never went so far as to formally accuse journalists in court filings of committing crimes for reporting on classified information. Now the Obama DOJ has. “

Seems like the MSM should be picking up the ball and running with this one.

To get the surveillance Justice dept said the reporter broke the law yet no charges brought against him, since he did nothing illegal to charge him with.

28
posted on 05/20/2013 7:35:23 AM PDT
by sickoflibs
(To GOP : Any path to US citizenship IS putting them ahead in line. Stop lying about your position.)

GOPJ~:” This is a smoke screen strategy - they want to change the subject...”

Agreed ! It is a feint to ignore the core issues of Benghazi
That a Coward-in-Chief chose to ignore requests for help
That he chose to abandon his men and his sworn duty

But the issue begs a bigger question
Information obtained illegally is tainted, and will be thrown out of impartial court
The Fast and Furious, Benghazi ,the IRS issue, and others
indicate that this administration believes that they are ABOVE THE LAW
and able to coerce , intimidate , and bully any opposition
After all , it’s the ... “Chicago Way of Thuggery”

There’s a reason ‘laws’ have 5,000 pages to them... It’s so the thugs running the government can ‘get’ anyone they want... They’ll ‘get’ this journalist - make an example of him - and totally intimidate members of the press who might have stood up to them.

Bob Woodward recognized the Obama people as thugs... but even he admitted that what was done to him probably would have worked against a younger, less sure journalist. Intimidation’s an art - and democrats have perfected it...

In the long run, democrats be shown for what they are - and people will turn away from them with disgust... Because of our cultural traditions we’ll get rid of this crop of liberal thugs, but it’ll be closer than comfortable...

I've been posting the answer to that question, repeatedly. But I don't blame you if you've better things to do than search my old posts.

You cut their salaries, clip their wings, and make them surrender, by not waiting for someone else to do it. Voting (the ballot box) doesn't help. Shooting them (the cartridge box) isn't legal. Talk (the soapbox) is rarely helpful unless you're a Beck or a Limbaugh with a vast audience.

What would work is for the taxpayer NOT to work. Go OUT of the box and divest yourself of the income that obliges you to pay income tax. Encourage others to do likewise.

If enough taxpayers did this, the government would cave to ANY demand. They can't keep the lights on without YOUR money.

As for the TEA Party, if as you say they were "cut down pretty quickly," and "fell back in line," then they were paper tigers at best. I have other designations for such people as you describe.

I encourage FReepers to read the whole article. This isn’t about just Fox News and James Rosen. It’s about the 1st amendment. What the Obama/Holder DOJ is doing goes far beyond anything that has ever been done before.

It makes me wonder at what point the lamestream media went from refusing to report on Obama because he was their Messiah to being afraid to do so. Will they stand with Fox News again as they did when the WH wanted to exclude Fox from those interviews?

41
posted on 05/20/2013 8:03:27 AM PDT
by BuckeyeTexan
(There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. ~Steve Earle)

Agree that all of these scandals at the same time is something like a three ring circus. There is so much going on that the average citizen can’t follow them all. They just blur into some amorphous blob.

Here’s the thing...
These tactics might be understandable if the government were actually trying to locate someone who was leaking national security information, you know, actual ‘spy stuff.’ Like, say, publishing classified details of an effort to find international terrorists. (I’m looking you, New York Times.) But what we have here is the government trying to figure out who is exposing its inner secrets.

In other words, this isn’t a case of a government trying to protect the country.
This is a government trying to protect itself.

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